I am quite amazed that I haven’t wanted to stay at home since I started to work full-time after almost five years of working as a freelancer.
Freelance work has its perks and pitfalls. I really enjoyed it as it gave me the space to test new waters; learn new skills, build self-confidence and best of all network with people from all walks of life.
I had already been working full-time for a Call-Center and a Back-Office for two prominent organisations. Though the incentives and take homes were great there was not much room for growth, at least in a personal sense.
My partner encouraged me to get in to the the creative side of work. The only thing I knew of the creative side was to write and the first attempt was at becoming a content writer for fairly new web agency. However this too was another process where you turn the story around so many instances you run out of things to write about.
I then moved on to further seek inspirations to work in the world of creativity. Joined yet another web agency in which I had the opportunity to work for a client that customized maps for holiday rental properties. This was exciting as I was always reading the world Atlas even as a kid.
During the same time I heard that a local newspaper was searching for sub-editors and at the time the job only required two days of your time in the evenings. I took it as yet another method of improving my writing skills. While the first few months were dedicated mainly to sub-editing, later on I requested a space to publish some of my writings.
I started off by writing about music and it was quite easy to interview bands, write gig/ festival reviews as I would frequently be in the midst of it while my partner and his band would perform at these gigs.
My passion for food and travel was also turned in to words and gradually I was training myself to become a journalist. From the Sunday paper I moved to a daily paper and was given the challenge to teach myself how to write Industry News, Page One news, Features, One-on-one interviews and Sports News as well.
Not everyone is cut out to be a journalist and you need to constantly be at it if you want a carrier in journalism. This was one field that took me places and helped me to further build self-confidence. I am still in touch with my journalistic side and get in to the point where I sometimes sit and write down about issues. Some make it to this blog and some sit in a notebook.
My partner and I then decided to take the big leap from dropping all our other work to focus on the enterprise that we are still building. Sounds, cables, instruments have always crowded our house and my partner got the blessings and support from one of his family members to start his own business.
The sound rental market is already saturated with suppliers and the difference that we could make inside that is still small. However, with encouragement from all around we fully focused on building a network that depends on it for the past three years.
Not having a constant workflow for freelance or your own business can just dig a hole in your finances. Damage control must be done at times like this and the easy way out is to get back to the grind.
Again I hopped on the corporate train to make ends meet and my partner took back to his freelance designing work till we got back our finances in to level. It has been a rough year but we are slowly but surely lifting our heads up, still feet firm on the ground 🙂
Life cannot prepare you enough for the things that are coming and there is no better time than the present time to brace yourselves.
Be in the moment and be the eye of the storm.
The Buckwoman 